Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code?

#121

Post by unknownfuture » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 2:38 AM UTC

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #8

In what context would generating code faster not be a desired outcome? Assuming of course everything else stays the same (quality, etc.)

> Assuming of course everything else stays the same (quality, etc.)

Kinda begging the question, aren't we here?

Re: Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code?

#122

Post by strange_quark » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 3:25 AM UTC

jatins wrote: post #90

mrdw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Personally, I would work in company which respects more code/infra quality than coding speed. When you vibe-deliver a lot of features per sprint after some time codebase becomes an unpredictable AI Slop.

> I would work in company which respects more code/infra quality than coding speed Same. But that doesn’t have to be in contrast to using AI tools. There’s a lot of grunt in day to day coding as well. The problem is not the tools

The problem is the tools. The tools encourage you to hand over all control to the AI, taking the user out of the drivers seats resulting in slop. If we were more honest about where the utility of using LLMs for coding, we wouldn’t be burning nearly as many tokens.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code?

#123

Post by modgate » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 3:29 AM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code?

#124

Post by mplanchard » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 4:17 AM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #118

mplanchard wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would. Just finished up a job search recently for staff+, and still got leetcode interviews for most companies.

Thanks. That's tough. Did you only interview at big tech?

Big, medium, and startups. Big and medium definitely biased more towards leetcode, but I also got it at around a quarter of startups I applied to.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code?

#125

Post by archagon » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 6:42 AM UTC

i2km wrote: post #39

ramblerman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone answered the question with some actual examples. Please refrain from the hyperbole

Exactly. It's quite scary that some people are reacting viciously to this type of question. There's real insecurity here...

LLM use breeds insecurity, as well it should.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code?

#126

Post by archagon » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 6:43 AM UTC

glimshe wrote: post #83

Stepping back from AI completely (vs changing how AI is used in the company) is like stopping using IDEs, compilers etc. It's a tool . I don't understand why people would even entertain that. They are completely fine using random libraries written by random people but not having AI helping with a small refactoring? Nobody is making you use AI to do the entire work . I see developers using languages with garbage colle…

AI is not an abstraction.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code?

#127

Post by rafalgraniczny » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:00 AM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code?

#128

Post by Geezus_42 » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 10:27 AM UTC

conartist6 wrote: post #116

Geezus_42 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one put a dollar amount on stagnation?

On the lack thereof

No one put a dollar amount on [the lack of] stagnation?

Re: Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code?

#129

Post by markus_zhang » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 7:48 PM UTC

mplanchard wrote: post #124

markus_zhang wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. That's tough. Did you only interview at big tech?

Big, medium, and startups. Big and medium definitely biased more towards leetcode, but I also got it at around a quarter of startups I applied to.

Thanks for sharing. This is really surprising. Sigh, we still have to waste time grinding on these pointless stuffs. Just wish I get my FU money and never look back.

Good luck to you!

Re: Ask HN: Do you know of any company that went back to hand-written code?

#130

Post by BonanKou » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:25 AM UTC

TBH I think those who went back to hand-written code overreacted. In my experience, once you have nailed down the data structures and test cases (and for frontend, the visual design), letting AI fill the gap in between is a valid approach. The important thing is humans still own the spec and architecture. Security is a concern ofc, but models are getting better and better at finding bugs.